Designer jeans are
jeans
that were marketed as fashion
and status symbols. The
Nakash brothers (Joe, Ralph
and Avi Nakash) are generally
credited with starting the
trend when they launched
their
Jordache
line of jeans in 1978. Designer
jeans are cut for women
and men (but mostly for
women), available in many
sizes, and often worn skin-tight.
They typically feature prominently
visible designer names or
logos on the back pockets
and on the right front coin-pocket.

During the early rise to
prominence of designer jeans,
in the late 1970s and thoughout
the 1980s, it was fairly
typical to see fashions
for men follow those for
women, just as previously
women had been the first
to wear flared and bell-bottomed
trousers. For example, Jordache
initially marketed their
products to women only,
but soon followed with a
line for men that was very
similar in overall appearance
to the women's. Given the
general tendency toward
bagginess in men's pants
today, this male-after-female
trend is less noticeable;
nevertheless, most jeans
companies have offered low-rise
cuts for men in recent years,
a few of them very low.

Within a few years of
the Jordache launch, dozens
of other brands were on
the market. Among them:

Racy, suggestive advertisements
promoted many of the brands.
The first Jordache commercials,
with their "You've
Got The Look" campaign,
were rejected by the networks
as "lewd" and
carried only by independent
television stations in New
York. Other memorable television
advertising campaigns of
the time included Gloria
Vanderbilt advertising her
jeans as "a million-dollar
look", and
Brooke Shields posing
in a pair of Calvin Kleins
and intoning, "Know
what comes between me and
my Calvins? Nothing."

In the late 1980s, designer
jeans lost popularity. As
of 2005, they started coming
back into fashion with brands
such as
Seven
for All Mankind,
True Religion,
Rock N' Republic,
MR Jeans and others,
typically costing upwards
of $200USD. A few of the
older brands, namely Jordache,
Sergio Valente, and Calvin
Klein, are also coming back
with the designs that made
them popular.